Midlife crisis

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1762 you were given the first line of Dante's Divina Commedia and invited to continue it with lines begin- ning, 'I . . .'.

The best of the non-winners was R. J. Pickles with his bizarre quatrain:

I went to Venice with a girl called Rita. In a hotel I arrangea to meet her.

But when we undress she smella my feeta And rusha outside and drown in the streeta.

Other pleasers were Kate Joseph, Philip

Dacre, Basil Ransome-Davies, Mortimer Spreader and Ginger Jelinek. The prizewinners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Aberlour Single Malt whisky goes to Martin Woodhead.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita I left my wife and family at home,

And blundered forth, dressed in an old Wind cheater.

No fraught domestic crisis made me roam: I'd felt I had no vision left, no go —

No more ambition than a garden gnome.

I set my face, heedless of rain and snow, At the gaunt hills, trusting that way up there I'd find myself, and somehow get to know

What it all meant . . . The rocks were harsh and bare: How strange that such a landscape sh°tild inspire

Sudden self-knowledge! And yet that was where The revelation came — my true desire: My slippers, once again, warm by the fire.

(Martin Woodhead) Net mezzo del cammin di nostra vita I suddenly felt bored with being Peter; 'Piero' was, I felt, a finer name, More apt for one who craved some lasting fame.

'Piero Norman' would hold high positions Whilst effortlessly winning competitions And mastering a wide range of the arts: A man (the world would say) of many parts.

But then, if names explained my midlife plight, Well, `Norman' hardly set the world alight; Piero Shakespeare' had a certain ring,

I thought, or was 'Pierre van Gogh' the thing?

But then, alas, the chilling thought ran through me

That I'd risk ridicule from those who knew me. Farewell, then, 'Pete Magritte', `Pedro Onassis' And all my other daring aliases.

(Peter Norman) Nei mezzo del cammin di nostra vita I wrote a poem about vanished Youth,

_ But no one listened to my plaintive truth. Perhaps the rhyme was wrong, perhaps the

metre. Au milieu du chemin de notre vie, I tried; the extra language looked profound. It used to work for Eliot and Pound, But didn't seem to do the trick for me.

Mitten, I wrote, in unser Lebensweg,

But even then nobody understood.

I would have added Sanskrit if I could, And even flirted with Get By in Czech.

En medio del camino de nuestra vida, The metre started getting out of hand, But now at last I think I understand:

It's not the poem that's feeble; it's the reader.

(Noel Petty) Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita I banged the table, cried, `Enough!

We're off!' and packed our stuff And shoved you in the new fast-lane two-seater.

Enough of playing the safe family man, The Maestro in the middle lane, Boxed plonk, never champagne, Holidays spent towing the caravan, Enough of teenage sulks, chores, paying taxes, Gas bills, the mortgage, cutting grass, The whole domestic farce, And the pretence that being at home relaxes.

We can't afford it, but won't life be sweeter, When we have supper candle-lit,

Just us, Italianate —

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita?

(Robert Roberts) Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

I cried out, `La commedia e finita!'

Our marriage seemed a tame domestic farce Played out among the English middle class. I vowed to end it and return to Rome; `Addio', I exclaimed, 'I'm leaving home.' 'Then go,' she screamed, `and take your Sixties fashion And superannuated Latin passion.'

That hurt; for I had always prized my youth, But now she forced me to confront the truth: I could not hope to venture forth con brio, Wowing the girls from Saint-Tropez to Rio; I'd end up pacing the Italian coast Pursued by one or two old maids at most. I thus resolved to stay (ah, life is cruel!) And live out my declining years in Ewell.

(A. C. Bowden)

No. 1765: Bathetic

You are invited to write a poem of no more than eight lines, in which the last line is a crashing example of bathos. Entries to 'Competition No. 1765' by 5 February.